North Katy area - west of 99/north of i10

[fbf2006]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

The Woodlands is a very specific private development. It extends from Conroe ISD into Tomball ISD and, according to you (I'm not sure you're correct on this), Klein ISD. You can be in The Woodlands and also be in Tomball or Klein. (Though Tomball is an actual incorporated town.)

Bridgeland, I believe, will also extend into Waller ISD. Those folks will no longer get to claim "Cypress".

You just seem to want to let Katy and Cypress folks exclude the area between Morton and Longenbaugh from their community identities just because it doesn't fit their desired demographic images. Sorry, that's ridiculous.

To be fair, I don't think he's doing that at all though. I think his point is that if you have a Katy address, you live in Katy and if you have a Cypress address, you live in Cypress. That's all. Borders have to be somewhere. I live in Cypress, right at the border of Tomball. A portion of the Tomball residents close to me are in CyFair ISD and the others are in Tomball ISD. They all seem to say they live in Tomball, which is what makes sense to me. I believe a portion of Magnolia is even zoned to Tomball and they don't go around saying they live in Tomball.

I only moved here a year ago though and the only thing that makes sense to me is to say you live where your postal address says. It seems odd to go further into the details regarding which school district, fire department or what have you serves your area.

Same thing with Conroe ISD spanning the Woodlands, Conroe, Spring (yes I know that the Woodlands is technically mostly in Spring and Tomball). People in Spring and the Woodlands zoned to Conroe ISD don't go around saying they live in Conroe. Why would they?

Also we're not talking about the incorporated town of Tomball, that's a very small area. The whole reason for this conversation is due to the lack of incorporation. We're mostly talking about the unincorporated areas. Those in the unincorporated areas of Tomball certainly say they live in Tomball.

I do agree that the identity may be different. For example, Connecticut tends to have a NY or New England identity, depending on how close one is to the NYC or Boston area. That doesn't mean they are not from Connecticut.

[DabOnEm]

See ETJs making everyone fight each other. No one knows where they belong and are just "here". Would be way better if we had simple city limit boundaries that are well defined.

[LonghornHotspur]

Originally Posted by DabOnEm

See ETJs making everyone fight each other. No one knows where they belong and are just "here". Would be way better if we had simple city limit boundaries that are well defined.

This. If you don't have a mayor, you're just in <insert county here>, no matter what school district or post office you're assigned.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by LonghornHotspur

This. If you don't have a mayor, you're just in <insert county here>, no matter what school district or post office you're assigned.

Would that it was that simple. Take Baybrook Mall. It's within the incorporated boundaries of Houston, not Friendswood. But, it has a Friendswood mailing address, and the media often says Baybrook is in Friendswood. The City of Friendswood certainly wishes Baybrook was within its boundaries, but it's not.

[swopoe]

Originally Posted by LonghornHotspur

This. If you don't have a mayor, you're just in <insert county here>, no matter what school district or post office you're assigned.

Agree. I don’t live in Katy or anything, but I still don’t understand ETJs and I have been here 15 years. It really is like you live nowhere.

[Burnley]

Originally Posted by Ghost Town

I don't care about those schools. Those boundaries are artificial. I trust only geographical/postal boundaries.
Imagine, you live in North North Katy (north of Clay Rd) and you are having emergency in your house. You are calling police or fire department. Which address are you going to give them? Your official Katy address or maybe tell them something about school zones?

Thanks for proving my point. Living in an unincorporated area like north Katy makes you feel like you live nowhere because you aren’t officially apart of Katy or City of Houston. You don’t receive any City services such as Houston’s 311.

Living in north Katy your totally dependent on your local unincorporated law enforcement. Have fun!

Even “ghetto” Alief is within City of Houston boundaries and receives 311 service requests and has the Houston Police Department on its side.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by Burnley

Thanks for proving my point. Living in an unincorporated area like north Katy makes you feel like you live nowhere because you aren’t officially apart of Katy or City of Houston. You don’t receive any City services such as Houston’s 311.

Living in north Katy your totally dependent on your local unincorporated law enforcement. Have fun!

Even “ghetto” Alief is within City of Houston boundaries and receives 311 service requests and has the Houston Police Department on its side.

There are significant portions of Alief (including areas east of SH 6) that are in unincorporated Harris County.

[DabOnEm]

Originally Posted by LonghornHotspur

This. If you don't have a mayor, you're just in <insert county here>, no matter what school district or post office you're assigned.

Originally Posted by swopoe

Agree. I don’t live in Katy or anything, but I still don’t understand ETJs and I have been here 15 years. It really is like you live nowhere.

It makes a difference with things like home buying too. In most other metro areas there are cities, so if you want a home in that city you type "this city" and you'll get well defined borders. Nothing outside of those borders is that city and what you see is what you get. Meanwhile for Houston, you can type in "Cinco Ranch" and the borders that pop up is like half of Cinco Ranch (looking at Zillow here). It does not give new homebuyers a good measure or boundary of where they are going to live.

I hope the Houston area can get its act together here. It doesn't have a good counter for having so many heavily populated unincorporated areas. The Atlanta area at least has a bunch of smaller city-like counties. The NE has a bunch of townships and stronger counties. Other areas like Indianapolis and Nashville had city-county mergers. The majority of Houston remains in limbo.

[LonghornHotspur]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

Would that it was that simple. Take Baybrook Mall. It's within the incorporated boundaries of Houston, not Friendswood. But, it has a Friendswood mailing address, and the media often says Baybrook is in Friendswood. The City of Friendswood certainly wishes Baybrook was within its boundaries, but it's not.

Neither what the media 'says' nor what Friendswood wants matters. That development is within Houston municipal boundaries (likely for sales tax purposes).

If my uncle has.....oh never mind.